This area of training will benefit most engineers in the department. For some, the underpinning knowledge and terminology will be a welcome refresher of modern methods but for others, this training can change their whole approach to inspection, maintaining and refitting drive components.

There’s a long tradition of Maintenance Engineers having skills which are distinctly either mechanical or electrical and for years no crossover of these skills was encouraged.

So, an electrician could be called to a machinery breakdown, he traces the problem to a split drivebelt but doesn’t fix it because drivebelt replacement is to do with mechanical skills. Relatively common incidents like this play havoc with the effectiveness of maintenance management and leave production equipment stopped

In recent times however, the role of the maintenance engineer has changed to require some degree of multiskilling, which allows him to tackle both electrical and some mechanical tasks . For an electrician or technical operator these tasks might include changing belts and pulleys, chains and sprockets, bearings, shafts etc and to check alignment, tension and lubrication.

The benefits of this kind of skills upgrade are recognised to be broad and ongoing ... for examples of appropriate training programmes you could Google or have a look at my website www.training-industry.co.uk. for some ideas bearing in mind those questions in Talk to your TP